Random Ships *3

Here are the previous ones.

Whitefish Bay was built in China in 2010.

See the beached vessel to the left, it’s

Kathryn Spirit, not a pretty sight.

Here Orsula departs upstream of Beauharnois Canal.

She’s formerly . . . Federal Calumet.

Here Mississagi was offloading corn,

with a green light and 84% of something status.

And closing this out, I have a friend on Algolake who prompted me to help them fete their vessel’s anniversary five years ago here.

Happy 40th very soon and fair winds.   I’m curious about the United Way logo on the superstructure.

 

All photos by Will Van dorp.

Riverbanks 7

This series goes back to 2006, when I had no idea where it would end up a decade on.  Click here to see past installments.  All the photos in this post I took between Prescott ON and the start of the Beauharnois Canal.

Below . . . it’s the light at the location of the Battle of the Windmill.   Some of the charm of seeing this borderlands is learning of the obscure events of US-Canada history and the little remembered or mentioned groups like Hunter Lodges and the so-called “patriots” of the Patriots’ War.

Here’s the active monument to commerce at the port of Johnstown, ON.

What prompts me to do this post is a recognition of the beauty little seen.

More Mississagi soon, but for now, the self-unloader is offloading upstream of the Iroquois Lock.

This wall leads into the Iroquois lock, which doesn’t always close.  It’s a check lock.

This is the same dairy farm off the port beam and

the stern.

We meet Thalassa Desgagnes upstream of the Eisenhower Lock.

These transmission lines come off the Moses-Saunders Power Dam, crossing over the River at Massena.

Dog swimming on a leash?

Singer Castle, it’s not.

Singer Castle, 50 or so miles upstream, this is. 

And these are the Adirondacks, as seen from the River downstream of Massena.

 

This looks like the Eglise de Saint Anicet, QC.

Labrador here is just upstream of the first lock in the Beauharnois Canal.

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

Random Tugs 177

Here’s an Ocean tug I left out of yesterday’s post . . . one of the Trois Rivieres’ fleet, Andre M.  She has a distinguished past as the former Foundation Valiant, of the company made famous in Farley Mowat’s classics Grey Seas Under and The Serpent’s Coil.

Svitzer moved into Montreal recently, named one tug for the port and

another for 17th century gallivanteur bretonais.  Click here for some backstory on Montreal and here for  . . . Cartier. 

Denis M, a port tug, is an oldie from 1942.

Michigan and its barge Great Lakes is

Indiana registered, and it appears to be Andrie-managed for US Venture.  Here are some specifics.  To my surprise, other Andrie-managed (?) vessels may include G. L. Ostrander and Samuel de Champlain.

Boatman No. 6 seems to operate as a one-boat harbor service vessel.

Since Everlast has captured my imagination, I was happy to see it again just upstream from Montreal.

Has anyone seen a photo of her as Bilibino?  Some of her interesting worldwide history can be found here.

And the last boat for today is Qimu, which

is a rare sight for my southern eyes because of the script on the stern and bow.  It’s Inuktitut, written in a Canadian Aboriginal syllabic script.   Over a decade ago and before I had the habit of carrying a camera, I saw a general cargo ship in Red Hook Brooklyn with its name written in similar script.  I no longer recall the name of the ship, but it looked like this one.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

And unrelated but in closing, here’s a information request from Michael Pak, which you can also see in the comments section to the left above, where you can also post your answers:  “Hello, I’m wondering if anyone here can help me find out any information about my great grandfather John Maitland Adams, a tugboat captain on the Hudson in the thirties and forties I believe. He is mentioned in the March 1947 National Geographic magazine in the story “Shad in the Shadows of Skyscrapers” along with ‘river veterans, Captain, Fred Truax, Harry Lyons,Floyd Clayton and William Ingold.’  My grandmother and great uncles spent their early years on the river, they hauled coal and lumber up and down the river. He retired from the river and became an engineer on the Hudson River West Coast Line. He lived out his life on the river dying on his boat in Edgewater, I think. In his obituary they refer to him as ‘Pop Adams.’  Any records or info about him would be greatly appreciated.”  MP.

Anyone help out with leads?

Here’s more on shad fishing in the Hudson.

And since we’re on research requests, does anyone know which tug would have been towing cargo barge Columbia Boston in Cape Cod Bay in February 1992 when it lost some containers?  Here’s a reference to that event in a Bangor paper a year later because of  flotsam.

 

Ocean Blue 3

What’s this . .  a catatug?  A joke of meowman or purr people?  But first, have another look at more Ocean blue tugs posted on this blog before, including one that was once called Helen M. McAllister.  Click here and scroll.  Also, remember, double click enlarges.

All the photos today were taken in the port of Montreal.  Let’s start with Ocean Georgie Bain.

Here are more shots of Ocean Intrepide.

And that red vessel in the background, here’s

a cooer look at Peniche and beyond her what I first was a Montreal fan of meow man’s literature.

MSC Donata here is getting an assist from

two Ocean tugs,

Ocean Pierre Julien and

Ocean Serge Genois. 

And that returns us to the top photo, seen in its entirety here, Ocean Catatug 2 

pushing Weeks 235 with some unidentified structural steel, probably related to the new bridge over the Saint Lawrence. So far, Ocean has two of these catamaran tugs.

Closing out this post, it’s Blizzard Polaire.

I know there were Ocean vessels in Sorel and Trois Rivieres, which I missed.   Maybe I’ll see more next time, and I certainly want to see any and all in icebreaking activity some winter soon.   all photos here by Will Van Dorp.

 

 

Ocean Blue 2

Where has the time gone since I did Ocean Blue 1?  Well, it’s not been wasted.   Ocean blue seems at least as ubiquitous on the lower Saint Lawrence as  green-red G-tugs are to the upper Great Lakes watershed.

I took all these photos near their Quebec City base, nestled beneath the illuminated G3 grain elevators so reminiscent of the ones in Buffalo.

Right up front and center is Ocean Tundra, with Ocean Taiga looking over its starboard shoulder.  Are they still the most powerful Canada-built tugs at over 8000 hp?  I’m going to have to invest in winter layers so that I can come up in January and see these machines in ice mode.

Ocean Charlie docks here too.

Just in from an assist, Ocean Ross Gaudreault and Ocean Henry Bain return to base.   Click here for the particulars on all the Ocean vessels.

 

Here Ocean Ross Gaudreault and Ocean K. Rusby assist a heavily laden Garganey.

 

In the distance beyond Ocean Stevns, is that Jacques Cartier National Park?

And what blue-hulled vessel is that in the distance at the shipyard?

Ocean Guide does pilot exchange round the clock.

 

 

 

More Ocean vessels tomorrow.  All these photos by Will Van Dorp, who’s eager to return to Quebec.

 

North Bound 8

As we head upstream into Montreal, an orange dawn greets us from beyond Sainte-Anne de Varennes Basilica.

Closer to Montreal, a line of ships awaits, three at anchor and two down bound.

 

 

Ocean Intrepide switches the pilots.

If I’d been sleep-deprived, my first sense of Biosphere might have been a nearby planet beyond Buffalo-built  American Mariner. 

I recognized Balder immediately, new name notwithstanding.

And the raised metal confirmed my suspicion.

I was not expecting to learn of this direct link to a distant archipelago rich in lobsters and road salt, but one of these years, that’s a trip I’d love to do both for the destination--Îles de la Madeleine–and the journey.

I have no photos to prove it, but I wanted to experience Lachine Rapids, so I took a surprisingly enjoyable tour in one of these get-very-wet boats.

I wanted to see the rapids, because without this perceived barrier to reaching China from here, Montreal might not have become a city.

Because we tied up at Bickerdike terminal, we had the good fortune to see these Svitzer tugs and

 

Oceanex Connaigra, 

here passing the Clock Tower.

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who comes to the end of the actual trip with this post and who will now recap the same trip with some of the details left out.

North Bound 7

Note:  All these photos were taken on September 8–four days ago–after we had reached the northernmost stop on the journey and were returning to Montreal, where I stepped off for a spell.

Six years ago I did two posts ( here and here) about Canadian newsprint transporters that arrived in the sixth boro’s Hackensack River via the Lake Champlain and the associated canals.  A huge paper mill once stood here at the riverside where this spanking new amphitheater aka Amphithéâtre Cogeco–now stands.

Dawn comes sometimes and there’s no sun, only mist and rain like this.   But that light lends itself to looking at other things like water flow around a bow like the one of  Algoma Guardian,  now north bound on Lake Huron.

Floretgracht‘s very different bow attacks the flow differently.  Floretgracht is now in Hamilton.

Sichem Dubai was at the Trois Rivieres dock, but now is Louisiana bound. That dock is part of an existing paper mill.

Not sure what I’m looking at here.

Then the rain came on harder.

Garganey is the same vessel as in the photo here (scroll) escorted into a Quebec City dock by two Ocean tugs.   She’s now in Toronto.

 

The last leg on this trip will be the focus tomorrow.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

North Bound 6

I’ve made myself back to the sixth boro by train now, and I’m succumbing to “train lag,” which means I’m allowing myself a few days to put up chronologically arranged photos before focusing on some scene that caught me and haven’t let go.  The Quebec City-Levis ferries are part of a huge network.

The Coast Guard base is just below–way below–Château Frontenac, where a fateful conference took place in 1943.

An excursion boat has as namesake a Quebecois–same guy the extra ‘l’ notwithstanding– who undertook a significant journey with a priest.

Ocean has a huge base in the old port.  I plan a host of Ocean posts soon.

I don’t know if Nordik Express still makes this journey, but I intend to find out.

Django dates from 1928, but more than that, I know nothing.

And finally, back from a job, Ocean Henry Bain returns from a job, passing the pilots’ station.

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp, who recalls this morning as a day that lives in infamy.  In remembrance, check out the first photo here.

North Bound 5

These photos were taken between just south of Montreal–which we passed at night–and just south of Quebec City.

This is a fog bank north of Trois Rivieres.

 

 

Wilf Seymour is a regular on this blog.

 

 

Two Ocean tugs escort in a cargo vessel.

When I’m home, I intend to search for more info on Soulanges of Sorel,

as well as on Le Cageux.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.

 

 

 

North Bound 4

We are much farther north but without wifi I’ve been unable to post until now.  Enjoy these photos –sans commentaries–for now for the route from Clayton to Salaberry de Valleyfield.

Alex Bay,

 

 

Dark Island, and

and here’s another shot of Victorious on a crowded Saint Lawrence.

All photos by Will Van Dorp.